Moonlight Calls (Demon's Call Series Book 1) (40 page)

“Are you okay?” 
I asked, my voice husky.  I would have laughed at the absurdity of the
question- asking a vampire if
he
was okay, when I was the one bleeding-
but I knew it was a fair question.  After all,
I
was the seductress in
this odd situation.

He closed his
eyes and took a deep shuddering breath.  I realized that he was fighting for
control.  His hand continued to rhythmically caress my arm, and I shivered.  I
folded his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze before I slipped off his lap to
sit next to him on the bench.  We both needed a little distance.

His voice, when
he finally spoke, went deep to my core, silky and soothing.  “I’m fine.  I just
need a minute.”

I nodded in
understanding and rose to inspect a cluster of grapes hanging from the arbor. 
They were ripe and I plucked a handful before returning to his side.  I placed
a tart grape in my mouth and sat down, holding the cluster out to Shen.  He
took a few and slouched back against the bench.  Popping a grape in his mouth,
he looked at me, considering.

“You don’t taste
like a human,” he said finally.  He didn’t sound concerned, just perplexed.  A
ripple of cold fear washed over me.

“Of course I’m
human,” I snapped.  One of my worst fears was that my powers stemmed from me
being something else.

Shen only
nodded.  “Of course you are,” he said softly.  “I just said you don’t
taste
like
one.  You taste like raw power.”  He shuddered in memory, freaking me out. 
“You taste like fire, kind of like a master vampire,” he whispered.

I was starting
to get concerned now.  “But what is it they are hiding from me,” I asked
impatiently.

Shen shrugged. 
“I would guess they don’t want you to know just how powerful you are.”

I started to
shoot back an angry reply, but he held up a hand to silence me.  “Maybe they’re
trying to protect you.  I can’t imagine Argenou or Henry would be happy to have
such a strong unknown wandering about un-chaperoned.  And if everyone knew what
you tasted like...” he trailed off.

I nodded
slowly.  It made sense, but it also made me extremely uneasy.  What the hell
was I capable of?  Not to mention that this stranger now knew my secret.  Was I
somehow half vampire?

Shen gazed at me
as if reading my thoughts.  He tossed the rest of his grapes in his mouth and
stood, holding out a hand.  “Nothing has changed from five minutes ago.  You
are still you.  There is nothing new to worry about.  And, Dominic is my
master, not Argenou.  I won’t be compelled to tell anyone else about this.”  He
cleared his throat nervously.  “I think we should go back.  I…feel a bit weird.”

Maybe I should
have warned him that my blood had a little extra…kick.  I took his hand and let
him lead me back to the coven house.  We ran into Ailis and Dominic before we
made it out of the garden.  They took one glance at us and knew what had
happened.  Ailis’s seething anger, I was used to- she was a redhead after all. 
It was Dominic that really scared me.  I had never seen him this angry, and I
never wanted to see it again.

He rushed us in
a blur of inhuman speed.  I didn’t even see him move.  One minute he was ten
feet away, the next he was
right there,
coldness emanating from him like
shards of ice
. 
He grabbed Shen’s arm and wrenched it behind his back,
causing the taller man to fall to his knees in pain.

“What in hell do
you think you are doing?”  Dominic seethed.

Shen didn’t
struggle or become angry.  He simply bowed his head and said, “I’m sorry
master,” in a resigned voice.I flinched backward when Dominic slapped him so
hard that Shen fell to the stone walk, blood trickling from the corner of his
beautiful mouth.

 I had been
exposed to enough vampire politics for one night.  Ducking Ailis’s grab for me,
I hit the ground in front of Shen, landing jarringly on my knees.  “Are you
okay?”  I asked, trying to control my rage.  He pushed himself up into a
sitting position and wiped the blood from his mouth.  I watched as the cut at
the corner of his lip healed itself in an instant.  His blue eyes glinted up at
me in amusement.  “I’m fine,” he whispered to me.  He was a vampire.  What
looked brutal to me was probably just a love tap.

Standing, Shen
pulled me to my feet.  Ailis immediately grabbed my wrist and jerked me away
with bruising force.  “Get your fucking hands off me!”  I shouted in her face. 
Pulling away, I adjusted my dress with a jerk before turning to glare at Ailis
and Dominic.

“What the hell
is your problem anyway?”  I asked angrily.  “So he bit me.  So what.  You two
don’t own me.”

Dominic laughed
cruelly.  “You’re right.  I don’t own you, though it seems everyone I know gets
a taste.  If I did own you I would teach you a lesson right here and now.”  He
twitched his jacket straight before turning to Shen.

 “Him, I do
own.  And he will learn not to disobey me.  Seducing you when he has been
strictly forbidden to feed on his own is unacceptable.”

I shook my head
tiredly before sinking onto a nearby bench.  I willed the feeling of power
crawling over my skin to disappear.  I was mad, but I wasn’t
that
mad. 
Apparently Shen wasn’t the only one having control issues tonight.

“He didn’t
seduce me.”

Dominic’s anger
probably stemmed more from his desire to share my blood than anger at being
disobeyed.  Not that he was ever going to taste my blood when he had every
intention of trying to bind me.  He was just jealous.  I considered belatedly
that he could have ordered Shen to bind me for him and realized just how rash
and stupid I had been.  It didn’t matter.  It was still
my
life, my prerogative.

Ailis rolled her
eyes and perched on the corner of the bench.  I glared at her.  She didn’t own
me either.  “I asked him to bite me.”  I said bravely, squaring my shoulders. 
“You two think my life is all some big game and I’m tired of it.  I wanted to
know what you were hiding from me.”

The two older
vampires exchanged a weary glance and I surged to my feet.  I knew it.  They
were
hiding something.  “This is my
life you are playing with.  I
deserve to know what the hell is going on.”

Dominic relaxed
his posture.  “You are right, Mya.  We should have told you the truth.  But we
were trying to protect you.”  I snorted in disbelief and he raised an eyebrow.

“We didn’t want
you running around experimenting with your powers when you found out that you
could rival a master vampire.”  Right, cause I was likely to do that.  I was
scared of my powers as it was.

Ailis pitched in
sullenly.  “And it wouldn’t do you any good for Argenou or Henry to find out.”

I nodded.  “You
still should have told me.  Who knows what could have happened if I lost
control again.”

Ailis looked
guilty, but Dominic was unrepentant.  He was used to making decisions and
having his orders followed without question.

“We did what we
thought was best,” he said softly.  “We don’t
know
where you get all
this power, but… it’s not like anything I have ever seen.”  He didn’t finish
the thought aloud, but I could certainly catch his drift.  He had studied
humans with unusual abilities for centuries.  And I wasn’t something he had
encountered.  Maybe because he had only been studying
humans.

The night air
felt heavy around me and I listened to the chirp of the crickets for a full
minute before I nodded again.  I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this
argument, so I dropped it.  There was more to it than their ready
explanations.  I was learning to read between the lines.  They were still
hiding something and it would be all too easy for Dominic to guess what Shen
had told me and build an elaborate lie around it.

We returned to
the ballroom and I lost myself in the crowd, chugging champagne and breathing
in vampire pheromones until I forgot my anger.  I lost all fear for my safety. 
After all, I thought darkly, apparently I was one of the most powerful people
here.

I awoke the next
day with a new sense of myself.  Being with the wolves had expanded my horizons
to the point where I could see myself more clearly.  The incident with the cult
had finally driven my whole crazy situation home.  But knowing that I had more power
inside me than the monsters around me was kind of freeing.  I was sick of being
a victim of circumstances.  And I was sick of being a passenger in my own
life.  Thing just kept
happening
to me, and I was fed up.  I was ready
to make things happen, rather than sitting around waiting for fate to bitch
slap me again.

I stepped out of
my car and shut the door with a thud. The wind had picked up and the clouds
were rolling in as I looked up at the looming Victorian mansion in front of
me.  The coven house.  A chill rippled over me and I pulled up the collar of my
new leather jacket. 
It’s just the chill in the air,
I told myself. 
Not
what I’m about to do.

I had waited
until Ailis was out running errands before I left the house.  I knew she would
want to stop me if she had any idea what I was about to do.  I didn’t want her
here.  If Argenou decided he would rather just turn me or kill me, I didn’t
want her to defend me.  For some reason, she gave her allegiance to the coven
leader, rather than her master.  If she stood against Argenou, he might kill
her too.  Bringing Christian was also out of the question.  I wasn’t going to
pull the wolves into this.  It was my battle.

Taking a deep
breath, I said a quick prayer to whoever or whatever was listening.  Then I
marched up the steps and into the lion’s den.  I pushed open the massive front
door, coming to a halt when I saw that the creepy twins were guarding the
entrance.  They had been sitting on a gothic monstrosity of a bench, but they
both stood as I entered.

“I need to talk
to Argenou,” I said shortly.  They looked at each other for a moment before
turning their regard back to me.  Two sets of brown eyes slowly turned silver. 
Their auras began to build and I almost took a step backward.  The sensation
was that of looming death-sickness, disease, violence, rot.

“I think you
should go home while you still can, little lady,” the hulk on the right
advised.  His brother nodded agreement and gave me a leer.  The threat was
explicit.

I crossed my
arms and tapped my toe.  “Look, he wants me to come join the family, right?”  I
was proud of myself for keeping my voice so even, when their combined aura was
making me nauseous.

They gave each
other another veiled look.  “I’ll tell him she’s here,” the one on the left finally
said.  His brother nodded.  The giant spun and hurried up toward the curving
staircase in a blur.  He was back a few seconds later.  They shared another nod
and I rolled my eyes.  I felt like I was an outsider in their secret little
vampire-twins-only club.

One of the hulks
gestured to me and I followed him to Argenou’s study.  Dominic joined us just
as I was walking through the door, the other twin close on his heels. 
Interesting
. 
The hulk hadn’t gone to warn Argenou, but to get Dominic.  I gritted my teeth
and said nothing.  I had hoped this would be a private meeting.  I didn’t know
if having him there would help or hurt.  I still had that niggling doubt about
which side the angelic blonde was really on.

Argenou was
seated at his desk and he gestured grandly for me to enter.  My escort left,
shutting the door behind him.  I felt trapped, but I squared my shoulders and
paced the length of the room, my feet quiet on the red carpet runner that led
to Argenou’s massive desk.  The master vampire leaned forward avidly, placing
his elbows on the desk and his chin in his palms.  He looked younger that way. 
Like an eager child.  He gave me a warm smile.  I frowned at him.

“Cut the act,” I
said flatly.

He laughed. 
Dominic brushed by me and went to stand behind Argenou, taking his usual
place.  He narrowed his eyes at me, probably a warning, but I ignored him.

“What a
wonderful surprise,” Argenou all but purred.  He was putting on an aura, trying
to lull me into submissiveness.  I pretended it was working, allowing my
shoulders to relax, and my arms to hang heavy at my sides.  “What brings you to
my home on this beautiful day?”

I glanced out
the window as fat raindrops slammed into the glass.  A little sapling just
outside was nearly bent double by a gust of wind.  Turning my attention back to
the sinking hole that was Argenou, I raised an eyebrow.  Beautiful day my ass.

“We need to
talk,” I said softly.

Argenou’s dark
blue eyes regarded me levelly.  “Oh indeed,” he said agreeably.  I could feel
the tension he was hiding.  He was… excited.  No doubt he was hoping I was here
to join him for good.

I kept my gaze
level on his.  “I want to make a deal.”

He gestured for
me to continue.  Okay, showtime.  I closed my eyes and concentrated on grabbing
a hold of my power.  I managed just a little shift.  I didn’t feel the power
humming over my skin the way it would if I were about to lose it, but it
felt…closer.  I opened my eyes to see both vampires regarding me with silver
eyes.  Good.  I had managed to make them feel what I was.  With any luck, my
own aura had just expanded.